4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

Amazing resilience, self-belief, and application by India.
Inconsistent and sometimes insipid and unfocused cricket from the Australians.

To think we lamented our poor performances when missing Smith and Warner due to suspension. India without Kohli, Bumrah, Jadeja, Ashwin, Shami, Yadav, and I reckon there is one or two more as well.
Just amazing from India

[jeemak]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

Pat Cummins, overall pretty happy with how things went apart from day five this test and last...........? Did he misunderstand the question?

[GVGjr]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

Outstanding game, one of the best ever. I'm not going to pay out on our cricketers who fought hard throughout but India have proven to be the clear best cricketing nation. I'm full of admiration of what India achieved though because when they were bowled out for 36 things looked grim for them.

We've got a lot that we can learn from this series and hopefully the selectors and CA can restructure things to see improved performances and I look forward to see what sort of 16 or 17 man squad we will assemble for the tests against South Africa

[Bornadog]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

Outstanding game, one of the best ever. I'm not going to pay out on our cricketers who fought hard throughout but India have proven to be the clear best cricketing nation. I'm full of admiration of what India achieved though because when they were bowled out for 36 things looked grim for them.

We've got a lot that we can learn from this series and hopefully the selectors and CA can restructure things to see improved performances and I look forward to see what sort of 16 or 17 man squad we will assemble for the tests against South Africa

I really doubt the SA tour will go ahead. Covid19 is rampant over there.

We really have to rethink things and look at our structure with batting and bowling.

Well done to India.

[chef]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

How good was that, im not much a fan of the Aussie team(so unlikeable) and India were just amazing in the circumstances. One for the ages.

[comrade]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

Paine’s sledge about getting to the Gabba aged well.

[FrediKanoute]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

What were our plans to the Indian batsmen? I watched the first session and the last hour of the match - its night time in the UK - and I couldn't fathom what we were trying to achieve. Lyon bowls with a defensive field to a batsman who is just not going to attack and has previously shown indecisiveness with close in fielders on the off side; Starc bowls tripe around the wicket; Cummins bowls too short, just feeding the defensive nature of Pujara; not sure what Hazelwood was doing......what ever the plan was....hit the crack etc.....it was obvious an hour or 90 mins in that it wasn't working, but we persisted and persisted and persisted and the Indians just kept inching away towards our total.

If there is a criticism of the Australian bowlers it is twofold:

1) none of them get movement and if there is no movement then you dont trouble decent quality batsmen; and

2) none have any imagination....they don't know how to go past plan A.

Compare the 5th day batting by the Inidans with Australia's 4th day batting - Siraj et al got the ball to talk and made scoring difficult. The Aussie batsmen never looked settled.

This is a disappointing result. It's shown that Australia's much vaunted bowling attack isn't that good; its shown that a spinner who despite taking 399 wicket's has twice been unable to effect a victory on a 5th day pitch; its shown that Lambo and Smith aside the Australian batting is technically poor (i'd argue that Lam and Smith are freaks); its shown that IPL is beginning to effect test cricket and Australia is being left behind; and finally if Paine isn't captain.....who is?

[GVGjr]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

I think there are some lessons all football fans can learn from the way India went about it.
They didn't blame injuries, missing players, experience, a lack of quality practice games, covid-19 isolation, games away from home or even a very strong opposition and just accepted each challenge on it's merits.

I'm amazed and impressed by the way they performed and they've exposed some areas for us to work on

I wonder if a bit of local knowledge from someone like Michael Neser might have helped us but once we iron out a few spots we can be an even stronger team again

[FrediKanoute]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

I think there are some lessons all football fans can learn from the way India went about it.
They didn't blame injuries, missing players, experience, a lack of quality practice games, covid-19 isolation, games away from home or even a very strong opposition and just accepted each challenge on it's merits.

I'm amazed and impressed by the way they performed and they've exposed some areas for us to work on

I wonder if a bit of local knowledge from someone like Michael Neser might have helped us but once we iron out a few spots we can be an even stronger team again

I agree. My rant against Australia's performance stands, but full credit to the Indians, they stood up and flew the flag when no one would have blamed them for rolling over!

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

Without a doubt the most amazing performance from an opposition side on our soil. It would've been unfair had they not won the series, to both teams actually.

As for Australia, I think unless we iron out some systemic issues with our first class cricket (unlikely given the prominence of Big Bash) we're not going to see a return any time soon to preeminence in world cricket. I shake my head as to how we were ranked number 1 coming into this series.

Paine has done well to turn things around to a degree since the ignominy of South Africa two years ago,

but I feel we're in a real pickle right now as I'm both not convinced Paine is our best keeping option, or that there are any other ideal replacements as captain. We need to be searching for a new leader and keeper but I don't think it serves the team well to have Smith return as captain or to promote Cummins.

Therefore I guess Paine continues for the time being, but we need some new leaders to step up. Alex Carey would be a good option as captain I think, but he can't just come in and captain straight away, but he also can't play without us needing to find a new captain.

So as I say we're in a bind right now.

I think Starc is just about done at Test level. Maybe its time for Jye Richardson to get ago now he's recovered from his injuries?
Ideally I'd have liked to have seen Swepson at some stage this summer as well. We really need to find a spinner who can regularly test sides in the 2nd innings and a good leggie is more dangerous than Lyon. Again, I acknowledge Lyon has done extremely well in his career, but he rarely runs through sides.
Outside of Adelaide our vaunted bowling attack were unable to get multiple quick wickets, especially in the middle order- India always seemed to be able to settle and rebuild. On the other hand, we rarely were able to consolidate for long periods with the bat.

[Topdog]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

I dont understand why you wouldn't promote Cummins.

Paine makes poor decisions in my opinion and is now also making 4-5 mistakes a game as a keeper.

I think we need to realistically look at where we are and make some hard deicisions.

5 of our last 6 test series have been played in Australia and we are 3 wins (Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka), 1 draw (England) and 2 losses (India)

You may think I'm cherry picking by using the last 6 results but to get consistent Australian wins you have to go back to 2016.

We have been average for a long time.

Pretty decent article

https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/australia/cricket-australia-vs-india-fourth-test-at-the-gabba-reaction-video-bordergavaskar-loss-exposes-cracks/news-story/3d7926c2b0339016937599223c3a858e

[comrade]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

As fragile as our batting is, it's our bowling that lost this series.

We had over 400 runs to play with and 130 odd overs to bowl India out in the 3rd Test and failed. We had 300+ and almost 100 overs in the 4th Test and failed. History suggests you'd win those 9/10.

Fingers should be pointed at Starc and Lyon, with Paine also responsible for some poor decision making and inability to change things up when the momentum was swinging away.

[Topdog]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

As fragile as our batting is, it's our bowling that lost this series.

We had over 400 runs to play with and 130 odd overs to bowl India out in the 3rd Test and failed. We had 300+ and almost 100 overs in the 4th Test and failed. History suggests you'd win those 9/10.

Fingers should be pointed at Starc and Lyon, with Paine also responsible for some poor decision making and inability to change things up when the momentum was swinging away.

Full agree with that. To have 2 opportunities to bowl out India on Day 5 and miss is pretty unforgiveable.

[GVGjr]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

As fragile as our batting is, it's our bowling that lost this series.

We had over 400 runs to play with and 130 odd overs to bowl India out in the 3rd Test and failed. We had 300+ and almost 100 overs in the 4th Test and failed. History suggests you'd win those 9/10.

Fingers should be pointed at Starc and Lyon, with Paine also responsible for some poor decision making and inability to change things up when the momentum was swinging away.

There was some media speculation at the start of the season that our quartet of bowlers were in someways comparable to the McGrath, Warne and co era. That argument has been answered by a powerful Indian side in this series.
We have a very good bowling group but not a great one

I know we like a left armer with our fast bowlers I think Michael Neser might have been a better option than Starc for this test
I'd add Richardson and Neser to the mix for SA if Pattinson isn't available

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Re: 4th Test Australia v India - 15 to 19 January 2021 - GABBA

There was some media speculation at the start of the season that our quartet of bowlers were in someways comparable to the McGrath, Warne and co era. That argument has been answered by a powerful Indian side in this series.
We have a very good bowling group but not a great one

I know we like a left armer with our fast bowlers I think Michael Neser might have been a better option than Starc for this test
I'd add Richardson and Neser to the mix for SA if Pattinson isn't available

I would've liked to have seen some more first class cricket to see if Riley Meredith and Wes Agar were at in their long format development this year as well.